History

"Famous Blue Raincoat" was released as the thirty-fourth Thing a Week on May 26th, 2006.

Live performance

"Famous Blue Raincoat" is rarely played at a Jonathan Coulton concert.

During the May 13, 2009 concert at the Dallas Granada Theater, the crowd asked for a second encore after his planned encore. Although he happily finished off with "I feel fantastic" he used the beginning lyric of Famous Blue Raincoat (It's four in the morning...) to indicate he was really tired after being up since six that morning.

He also played it by request in the St. Louis Concert in the Duck Room @ Blueberry Hill. It seemed appropriate since it was a cold and rainy night.

Another live performance of this song occurred at The Barrymore in Madison, WI on February 26, 2009. It was performed by request, as he had been taking requests over twitter before the performance. He remarked several times throughout the show how depressing the set list was, and blamed it on the requests.

Trivia

It is unknown if the timing was intentional, but it is worth noting that "Famous Blue Raincoat" was released the week after Tom Cruise Crazy, because the song contains the lyric "Did you ever go clear?", a well known Scientology reference. A post by fan Jim Gramling reminds us that Leonard Cohen has indicated in interviews that he "dabbled" in the religion. It is also not known if Cohen ever indicated a connection between the lyric and Scientology.

Liner Notes

From the liner notes of Cohen's "The Best Of:"
"I had a good raincoat then, a Burberry I got in London in 1959. Elizabeth thought I looked like a spider in it. That was probably when she wouldn't go to Greece with me. It hung more heroically when I took out the lining, and achieved glory when the frayed sleeves were repaired with a little leather. Things were clear. I knew how to dress in those days. It was stolen from Marianne's loft in New York sometime during the early seventies. I wasn't wearing it very much toward the end."

Availability

Downloads

"Famous Blue Raincoat" is currently only available for purchase in the Jonathan Coulton MP3 Store as an individual track or as part of Thing a Week III. Of course, this song is also included as part of the "Everything" playlist.